Oooh, that's a hard one for me... I do like my hot food and my hot coffee, so stoveless isn't for me. But I've had times and places where cooking wasn't convenient, so I can sort of manage.

For dinner, stoveless means doing what a lot of us do for lunch. One thing I like to carry is the 'brioche toasts' from Trader Joe's - do you have TJ's up your way? They're nice for making 'tea sandwiches' with any combination of peanut butter, dry sausage, hard cheese, tuna, chicken, or salmon salad (I carry olive oil, sometimes vinegar, and a little packet of herbs to dress up pouched chicken and fish). Elf likes his with sardines. I find the toasts are a lot easier to face than most crackers.

I like having some sort of vegetables with this if I'm doing a cold dinner.. Harmony House vegetables rehydrate in a couple of hours cold, so I've been known to do a sort of coleslaw with their dehydrated cabbage, carrot, onion, herbs and olive oil, and a True Lemon packet. Throw in some water to reconstitute a couple of hours before dinner time, and just let it soak in the freezer bag. The same coleslaw can go wrapped with reconstituted refried beans (again, a long soak in cold water will work) and hard cheese in a tortilla. Or with dehydrated hummus. Or I can fill a tortilla with my home-dehydrated lentil-corn-and-red-pepper salad - plus some cheese and pepperoni. Or go all hiker-trash and do a PB-and-gorp burrito.

The other Harmony House veggies can be improvised into various sorts of 'chopped salads'. Make them substantial with hard cheese and/or pepperoni and/or jerky. If you find wood sorrel or young grapevine leaves or young dandelion or whatever, by all means throw it in. A nice chopped salad and some sort of unleavened bread make a decent cold meal.

If you can stand having your porridge cold, oatmeal reconstitutes well overnight and is nice and gloppy in the morning. Throw in a little bit of powdered milk and a splash more water. Or there's always granola/muesli, Or - I can stand Pop-Tarts maybe one day in five. Otherwise, eeeew. Or see what the grocery store has. I sometimes like hermit cookies and coffee for breakfast. Freeze-dried fruit, either reconstituted or eaten crunchy, is a winner for accompanying breakfast.

If you can stand to be awake in one place for a while, make instant pudding in a freezer bag and chill it in a spring.

Be aware that going stoveless means dodgy sanitation for your spork. Ordinarily, I don't worry about this, since I boil my spork every time I cook.

Also remember that the water weight of food carried from town to be eaten on the first day doesn't count. If I'm carrying extra water weight in town food, I just carry that much less in my bottles.

after a couple weeks, i went cold breakfast on my thru as it was one less chore to do in the mornings. i had instant oatmeal with dry milk, raisins, and honey probably 80% of the time. the remainder was granola or grape nuts. and tang to drink although i don't do that anymore. first day out of town if there was a bakery i'd bring a cinnamon roll or something like that.

in conneticut i mailed my stove ahead a couple weeks and experimented going stoveless. i did not like this, although i put no thot into what to eat. bagel, cheese, and summer sausage/pepperoni etc and i was glad when i caught up to my stove. i'm sure i could do better now.

always a cold breakfast for me. I like to eat a couple of cheerios cereal bars while I walk.

I eat lots of tortillas. Peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, chocolate hazelnut spread, chocolate peanut butter, honey peanut butter, honey, tuna, chicken, ham, spam, ground beef crumbles, and "cheese" that comes out of a nozzle are some things to put on the tortillas. I carry fruit & grain bars. Granola bars, cookies, and candy bars are also good. I saw one hiker eat Campbell's soup right out of the can without heating it, at Fontana Dam.

Breakfast Shakes

8 Tablespoons Nido
2 Packs Carnation Instant breakfast
16 ounces water

Pick your flavor and add stuff that matches. With chocolate instant breakfast I add 2 instant coffee packs. With vanilla or strawberry instant breakfast I add powdered freeze dried fruit.

No cook dinner for me is dried sausage and cheese. Maybe carry a fresh apple and some flat bread.

Going stoveless can place a new perspective on ones walk. Depends on the particular Hike that you are taking. I like to sometimes leave the stove at home and fix my coffee and meals over small wood fire. Minus stove/fuel, the only diff is a 2.5oz mug. And HOT COFFEE

Many dehydrated & freeze dried foods can be reconstituted cold. Just takes a far longer time. Throw it in a nalgene or double ziplock while you hike.

One idea I have been thinking about trying is stuffed peppers. Carry a pepper or two, some precooked rice ( recipie I saw called for brown but will all the precooked microwave stuff available these days choices are many) & some reconstituded dry mushrooms. Add spices, soy sauce to taste. Could add reconstituded veggies. I like the idea of the crunch of the peppers that should last for a few days in the pack.

As mentioned above , many microwave rice meals that in a tortilla would make a decent cold meal. Pleanty of foil pack meats with mayo or other condiments & some cheese could do the same. For small condiment packs you can't snag at local fast food place try minimus.biz/

[quote='Mountain-Mike','http://www.appalachiantrailcafe.net/index.php/Thread/574-Stoveless-Meals/?postID=33542#post3354 I like the idea of the crunch of the peppers that should last for a few days in the pack}

Yep, Green Peppers! I gotta be waaaay.... deep in the woods if you find me without fresh onion and couple heads of garlic. Makes any meal better, (and more healthy) imo

To each their own. I couldn't dig a cathole large enough to deal with the aftermath of that recipe going through my gut.

I've been moving more and more towards NO cooking. I have to have my coffee, so some water will get boiled. A stick of pepperoni, block of cheese takes me a long way. I have found Wasa Bread holds up pretty well. Banana chips & peanut butter/Nutella...................and the Cheesecake is already cooked

for breakfast i found belvita biscuits, along with a mocha frappe(nido, instant breakfast and coffee)they have soft baked style, or cookie style. the soft baked turns to crumbs in your bag though.around 200 cal/serving, and much healthier than pop tarts.

Yeah. I don't think I could process even your morning blend.

Save the stoveless experiment until Presidentials on a three day weekend. Day one Hike from crawford notch to Lake of Clouds. Stay at hut as full service guest. Day two hike to Madison Hut & stay there. Day 3 Hike out to Pinkham. Problem solved! No syove to carry, very little food to carry with real coffee each morning. Even your wallet will get signifigantly lighter each day! It's a win, win situation!

i did that about 20 years ago, although in the opposite direction. nice walk.

entitled? I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about... Heyyyyy!

ive stayed at the huts and had a great time.very diverse group of people at the huts. mostly not poor.
you need earplugs though.

Was in a packed shelter in the Smokies couple yrs ago so put my earplugs in... which normally don't use. Usually wake early 6ish or so, this morning slept till around 9am. Shelter was all empty cept for my hike partner. Kind of freaked me out that I did not hear all the action.